Skip to main content

Exhaustion and Rest


Lately I’ve been having a lot of sleep and exhaustion issues. It all started when I decided to focus on shifting my sleep scheduled to an earlier bedtime (between 10 and 12).

I’m not entirely sure why, but when I went to bed early, I ended up sleeping only a few hours (anywhere from 3-5) and then waking up, unable to get back to sleep. I would simply get up since I don’t like lying around in bed like that.

Then I’d feel tired during the day and go to bed way too early. But again, I’d only sleep a few hours and get up, this time much too early.

There are certain things I like to do first thing when I get up (such as exercise and house chores) and I can’t do those when it’s still dark and husband is still sleeping. The problem with pushing those things off until later is because my self-discipline is very, very bad and I’ll usually end up not doing those things at all if I don’t do them first thing.

I also don’t like feeling so exhausted during the day. I don’t know why I can’t sleep longer, and even the hours I do sleep are restless and not very deep.

When I try to get work done during the day, I’m so tired that it’s hard for me to focus on my writing. I think the exhaustion is also causing my IBS to flare up a bit, and the discomfort and pain also distracts me from focusing on work.

So I haven’t gotten much writing done this past week, which is very frustrating to me when I’ve been trying really hard to get on a better sleep schedule so that I could get more writing done!


Today is Sunday, and I was recently reading the Creation story in Genesis about God creating the world and then resting. I know the psychological reasons why we need to rest, but the way my brain is wired, I have a tendency to want to keep working. Partly this is because of momentum—I’ve been working every day for 6 days so I want to keep working because it takes so much effort for me just to get started going in the first place. Also, if I haven’t gotten much work done during the week (like this past week), then I want to keep working to make up for it somehow.

But I will force my brain to shift gears and take a break. I know that if I look at the bigger picture rather than my immediate feelings of impatience and frustration, it will be much better for me to rest rather than trying to push myself. My body and brain probably needs the extra relaxation time, especially because I haven’t been sleeping well. I don’t know if the extra rest will help my sleeping schedule get back to normal, but I’m hoping it might.

Also, the fact that the Bible calls the Sabbath “holy” makes me feel a bit more reverence for it. Even if I don’t completely understand why it’s holy, I know that God must have a reason for it that I don’t see.

As for my exhaustion, please pray I can get better sleep and that my schedule evens out.

I would like to pray for you too! Leave a comment or if you’d like to keep your prayer request private, fill out my prayer request form below.

あなたのために、今日お祈りさせてください。祈りのリクエストはこちらにどうぞ。日本語で書いてもらっても大丈夫です。

祈りのリクエストはプライベートなことに関する場合があります。あなたのプライバシーを守り、あなたのリクエストを私とあなたの間だけにとどめるために、この用紙を作りました。過去に送ってくださった祈りのリクエストに関するアップデート、変更、追加などがある場合も、この用紙を使ってください。あなたからのお便りを楽しみにしています。

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Brainstorm - character occupation

Captain's Log, Stardate 03.23.2009 Hey guys, I could use some help. In my current manuscript, The Year of the Dog , which is a humorous contemporary romance, I have a minor character, Eddie. He’s my heroine’s ex-boyfriend, and they’re on good terms with each other. He’s a bit irresponsible, but not so much so that he’s a complete loser. He’s got a very easy going attitude, he forgets to pay his bills sometimes, he’s friendly and charming. He’s adventurous and fun to be around, but he’s a little forgetful sometimes, and he tends to spend a little outside his income. I need an occupation for him. What would a charming, easy going, slightly irresponsible guy do for a living? He’s not too irresponsible, because otherwise readers will wonder what in the world my heroine saw in him to date him in the first place. She was attracted to his charm, his easy going attitude (her family’s uptight, and he was a nice contrast), and his adventurousness. But his forgetfulness and irresponsibility ...
64 comments
Read more

Chinese Take-Out and Sushi for One

Captain’s Log, Supplemental My agent sent me an article from Publisher’s Weekly that discussed this incident: Chinese Take-Out Spawns Christian Controversy And here’s also a blog post that talks about it in more detail: The Fighting 44s This is Soong-Chan Rah’s blog: The PCS blog In sum: Apparently Zondervan (yes, my publisher), who has partnered with Youth Specialties, had put out a youth leaders skit that had stereotypical Asian dialogue, which offended many Christian Asian Americans. In response to the outcry, Zondervan/Youth Specialities put out a sincere apology and is not only freezing the remaining stock of the book, but also reprinting it and replacing the copies people have already bought. I am very proud of my publisher for how they have handled this situation. The skit writers have also issued a public apology . (I feel sorry for them, because they were only trying to write a funny skit, not stir up this maelstrom of internet controversy. I’ve been in youth work long enou...
39 comments
Read more

Japanese language learning process in more detail

I blogged a few weeks ago that I’ve jumped back into my Japanese language learning after being lazy and letting it slide. I’ve been keeping my Japanese language study habit for about a month now, and I wanted to blog about my process in more detail. One thing I had noticed about my Japanese is that I tended not to do it if I left it to do at the end of the day. I realized that it was just like my exercise—if I didn’t do it first thing in the morning, it never got done. So I started doing my Japanese right after my exercise in the morning. I treated it like one of my “frogs,” as I read about in the book Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time . The book is based off of a Mark Twain quote: “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” It suggests doing your “frogs”—your important things that you’re likely to procrastinate doing—first thing in the morning in order to get it done, and ...
2 comments
Read more

Window shopping

Captain’s Log, Stardate 03.14.2005 Knee update: I went to the doctor today for a checkup, and saw his assistant. I’ve been concerned because there’s still inflammation in my knee joint, and it’s been almost 4 months since the surgery. She said she’d talk to the doctor about it tomorrow and call me. Sometimes he suggests laying off the PT to see if that causes the inflammation to go away, but I don’t know if that will work because lately I’ve been pretty active outside of PT. At PT today, the therapist did ultrasound and some sort of electrical current on the joint. Hopefully that will make the inflammation start to go down. I’ll know by tomorrow, probably. Writing: Mt. Hermon conference starts this Friday! On Thursday night, I’ll be at the Santana Row Borders bookstore to help out (and hopefully learn a bit, too) at a booksigning for several of the ACFW authors who are attending Mt. Hermon . That should be lots of fun. I had a good brainstorming time at ...
Post a Comment
Read more

I GOT A CONTRACT!

Captain’s Log, Stardate 03.29.2006 I had a wonderfully funny blog post planned for today, but I got sidetracked by some news yesterday! Zondervan has offered me a three-book contract on my Asian chick-lit series ! I’m still stunned by everything that’s happened. The series is actually a 4-book projected Asian chick-lit series about four cousins who fall under the infamous family title "Oldest Single Female Cousin," and their ruthless, wealthy grandma applies pressure on each of them to improve their lack of love interests. I think the first book is tentatively scheduled to be released in August 2007. The blurb on the series is on my website here . Brandilyn Collins posted to the ACFW loop about my writing journey, and Tamara Cooper asked that I share it. And since you all know how much I like to talk , here it is. My writing journey: Like most writers, I have wanted to write since I was very young. (In high school, I wrote a fantasy novel that will never see the light of day ...
32 comments
Read more